Archiprix International 2001
Universidade Lusiada, Departamento de Arquitectura - Lisboa, Portugal
Jose Paulo
Ferreira Rodrigues
Tutors: Manuel Aires Mateus, José M. Assis e Santos
Programme: House for a fictional character, 'James Bond' as a fictional archetype. Site: Situated on Costa do Castelo Street in the castle hillside of the old part of Lisbon, the site nestles between the street and the castle walls. Objective: Casa_1 is a project involving a house that is to be integrated in the urban fabric of Lisbon, avoiding the perception and formality that respect for this historical location usually generates. Guided by a free-thinking approach, this building allows the user/ resident to apply his or her own domestic patterns and to interact positively with the space. The house pretends to be anything, wants to be everything. One longitudinal auxiliary space connects four transverse, distinct, and self-sufficient areas that mutually differ in terms of their incidence of light, thermal properties, and acoustics, but are similar in their technical ability to sustain any activity. All spaces are fitted with water, gas, electricity, telecommunications, toilet, ventilation, and a double-layer sewerage system that provides lavatory connections and a wide drainage area. (For example: a person could take a shower anywhere inside those spaces.) On the one hand, this house evokes notions of a fictional character (client) and, on the other, the house could be real although its escapes from a rigid concreteness. Its definition is to define. It is Archetype_House, a symbolic representation. There has been an attempt to generate beauty, not through the direct designing process, but diametrically, by means of the possibilities that design allows the user in his or her living activity.